Yesterday, November 14, 2017, a date which will live in infamy. Oh wait, wrong script. Yesterday the Kickstarter for Chuck Gannon’s Lost Signals of the Terran Republic Anthology went live, and had reached over half of its funding level in less than 24 hours. No reason to stop at the stated goal though. More money means a thicker anthology with more stories by more great authors. And the possibility of even more anthologies in the future.

For those not familiar with Chuck, which I would think would be a vanishingly small species, his first book of the Terran Republic and its irrepressible protagonist, Caine Riordan, won the Compton Crook award for best first novel. It went on to capture a Nebula nomination. Not only that, but in an almost unheard of coup, the next two books were also nominated for the Nebula, and the Dragon award as well. None of them won, unfortunately, since I think all three were above the competition in the years they were on the ballot. But I only had one vote. Chuck has one of the books on Amazon for free for another couple of days, the first, Fire with Fire. So, if you haven’t read Chuck, go out and snag the freebie while it’s still available.

Now, on to the anthology. I met Chuck at my first LibertyCon back in 2014. In 2015 he asked me if I would like to play in his Universe. When asked that by a NYT bestseller author there is only one answer, and it isn’t yes. It’s Hell Yes. We talked about it a couple of times through the years, and then the idea just seemed to fade away. I know how these things go. You have plans, but something else comes up and you don’t get to it. It happens to me all the time. I had about given up, when out of the blue comes an email that it’s on. The Kickstarter would be coming up in the near future, and he needed some copy from all of those interested. Now this was bad timing for me, I was trying to get two self-pubbed books out and was still working on the first book of the Kinship War series for Arc Manor Publishing. But I really wanted to be in this thing. It was a terrific chance to get more readers, for everyone involved. And I want more readers. Not that I don’t appreciate the thousands I have across the world (Ten thousand or so?), but everyone wants more. Part of the appeal of this project was that numerous writers could cross pollinate their fan bases. Someone who had never heard of one might buy it to read the work of their favorite, then read that unknown, to them, writer, and become a fan. And Chuck has arranged it so during the Kickstarter, we all get to highlight one of our own works to readers. It looked like a win for everyone involved.

I don’t know all of the authors involved, nor have I read most of them. Chuck asked me to be in it. He asked them to be in it. That’s enough of a recommendation for me, and I will be looking them up and reading their work. Those so far in the project include myself, Chuck of course, and Tom Doyle, Walter Hunt, Joelle Presby, Lawrence M. Schoen, Alex Shvartsman, Alan Brown, Robert Waters, Gray Rinehart, Rick Boatright, Robert Chase, Vonnie Crist, Alistair Kimball, and Marc Miller. I think there may be more, but I’m sure the full line up of the first volume isn’t set in stone. Chuck will be contributing stories and editing, and the anthology will be published through Eric Flint’s Ring of Fire Press. The tentative publication date is May of 2018. And there are rewards for the Kickstarter, including of course copies of the book in eBook and paperback format. You can also get your name into a future Caine Riordan book as a red shirt, and die a glorious death. Or as a recurring character who will move from novel to novel (a couple of my local friends did this and have been in the last two or three books with major roles). You can name a ship, a station or a city. At higher levels you can name a planet or a class of ship. All kinds of perks to play with. So get out there and contribute to what promises to be a great collection of stories set in an award winning and best selling universe.

For all who have asked, I have contracted to have the audiobook of Exodus: Empires at War: Book 6 produced. It should be out by the end of January, 2018. Hopefully we can move on to book 7 as soon as that one is completed. I will also have book 13 of the Exodus series out by the end of this month, and book 5 of the Refuge series out by mid December. And I will be revamping the blog site, to include a new book selling page that will allow readers to go to Amazon through my Amazon Associates account. And my new website is up at the same old address, http://www.dougdandridge.net . A lot of good stuff coming up.